Slick

Oof, if only.

Correct. Re-read what I said in full - that ultimately infers enough about organisational intention since it was the same stakeholders keeping both projects running. Just to note - so far in this thread, we've acknowledged that CEO's do spin (and for good reason) only to then take everything a CEO says as gospel in a clearly paid-for op-ed after said company reported lower than expected results. Bit of whiplash digesting that one. If we're at the point where we presume that everything said in the news is true then I'm not sure what kind of objective conversation there is to actually have. We do. I also remember the ride testing a week or so later. There's no need to when you've been posting thoughts online that have been on the money for over a decade. No one's forcing you to agree with me, I'll just have that giggle you mention instead and be on my way. 🍻

Not much of a Future Lab if the project was dependent on a key stakeholder and that stakeholder left. And if the dissolution of Corroboree is anything to go you could safely assume Dreamworld wasn't planning on going down the Future Lab route without that key stakeholder. Because drinking the kool-aid rots your teeth.

Going to make a call to close this thread. Good on the bloke for turning a negative into a positive. 🍻

Besides the fact that the Justice League make an appearance and you shoot a gun they're pretty different. 🤔

What are the other IP's you'd use beyond anything ABC Kids, LEGO, Disney, Universal or Warner Bros.?

Probably? I mentioned the reason why already. Not sure I see organisational strategy/culture/sustainability the same way as you but agree to disagree. Future Lab was both announced and suspended pre-COVID-19 during John Osborne's tenure. The short term is you make the announcement, and kick the can down the road 2-3 years when the park is revenue positive and the next leadership can figure out a more holistic approach to the brand's strategy and culture around sustainability. They most definitely have the cash now. So what's the problem? Is the argument that they shouldn't build it because research and conservation don't matter? Should their focus be solely on generating revenue from their animal exhibits with no consideration for sustainability? This is pretty ironic because you're dead on the money, brand strategy is nuanced and complex. The issue for Dreamworld is that they keep falling into situations where they're simply not asking "how will this be perceived" at a time when their brand is still in the toilet and they're trying to gain value so that they can maximise the amount from the inevitable sale. Just a side-note - I think the issue in this thread is that there are actually quite a few different arguments going on here. For clarity from my end - I love Dreamworld, and I'm passionate about it (and by that extension, critical) because that's how things get improved over time. I don't personally have a problem with the grant re-allocation, it was arguably not necessary in the grand scheme of things but that's a whole other thing. Leadership did things to keep the business afloat and I get that. I continue to believe that the crux of the issue for many folks that think it was a bad call (and ultimately it was) was the lack of consideration or planning for any downstream impacts. And the net result of that lack of consideration has landed them in the news three times, decimated their inbound marketing for a while and further tarnished the brand. This is a brand that was previously perceived extremely positively regarding its contributions toward conservation. As a result, no matter how positive or well-positioned a DWF conversation effort is, it'll be tainted by this situation, and the flow on from that is more than likely that people will donate less. Exactly this.

Easy - build Future Labs.

Here's some more insight about the ad here. From Koala:

Aaaaaaand we're back.

That's what she said.

Could it be a noise shield for the lower, closer paths of track?

What's your stance on governments re-allocating funds from public education and putting it into the Department of Defence for the purposes of a weapons manufacturing grants program?

TLDR; just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Silver lining: good to finally see Steel Taipan get national coverage.

Should Qantas fix their customer experience and perception problems if their business is generating revenue?

If your mate said he needed five grand to pay for his mum's surgery and then spent it on personalised license plates, then gets a sick work compo payout and doesn't give you any money back, is he still your mate? Without unpacking a marketing thesis here, I'd argue that the brand continues to suffer because negative consumer perceptions about the brand are being re-enforced at the pre-purchase stage of many potential customer's buying journeys. It's not about whether or not they care about about koalas, it's that they keep hearing bad things in mainstream media about the brand that's ultimately reinforcing previously held assumptions about the brand. Therefore, when many of these customers are at the moment of truth where they make a purchasing decision, they're simply going elsewhere, and that's evident of the massive differences in attendance between organisations at present.

I'm not sure that's the hill you want to die on given the reasons why they're not profitable to begin with. At the most critical point of Dreamworld's recent fiscal history, they had 30 million cash in hand after restructuring the organisation. I think it's important to note that the sum we're talking about specifically is not insignificant, but wasn't the saviour of the business either, not by a long shot. It's just bad optics, regardless of how above board it was. And facing facts here, continually bad optics are a huge reason why attendance hasn't returned and the business isn't profitable.

You're shifting the goal posts so i'll re-articulate. If an airline or a large financial institution becomes unprofitable during a crisis like the GFC, requires a government handout to continue to operate, and then returns a large dividend to share-holders, have the tax-payers been taken for a ride and is it moral despite being totally 100% legal? They're in the position they're in now because Ardent Leisure finally sold the bit of their organisation that actually makes money. Your argument almost seemingly infers that they're profitable and successful seemingly only because of the help they've received from government (neither of which is true). As I pointed out, that's not the timeline. You can't believe everything a presser or a comms person says.

Given that the company has north of 160m in cash and no debts, should Ardent pay that money back to tax-payers if they didn't need it in the end and it wasn't used for its intended purpose?

As you'll note in the announcement thread the project was shelved well before COVID. I'd imagine the departure of the head of life sciences largely contributed to the project not progressing. To wit, I have no idea how a project isn't anything but cancelled if key stakeholders are no longer involved and the revenue has been spent. Unfortunately very accurate. This summarises my stance pretty well, just because it's not illegal doesn't mean it doesn't pass the sniff test, especially when the business is in a financial position where they're now debt-free and are about to make a second killing from the sale of Dreamworld.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the old train carriages (specifically the last open carriage) catered to those with wheelchairs?

Do folks remember the first time they saw or went on a steam train? And if so, why was it memorable?

If anything i'd make Dirty Harry's even better. My focus would be primarily improving the dining/drinking areas whilst leaving the bar itself as is. At present, the indoor space has the atmosphere of a Sizzler's restaurant and the outside seating area isn't exactly the bees knees either. Finding a way to adjoin the two spaces with the focus of retaining what make's Dirty Harry an institution would be the goal. I think the biggest issue with the indoor seating is just how closed off it is. By making the rear dining section more open, I think you open up more potential for people to sit and consume more F&B instead of feeling like they're missing out and need to get in and get out. Attached are some moodboard style pictures of kind of how it looks in my mind.

Agreed on this point - chronologically it's backwards. Do you meet Oz and then go to Kansas? 🤷🏻‍♂️ You'll find that USJ's land (which closed in 2011) was based off the book "Land of Oz" and not the movie "The Wizard of Oz". Broadly speaking from this thread in general - this is simply marketing in 2022 and the phrasing you'll find is simply the park's way of cutting through the insane amount of noise we're exposed to everyday. Dreamworld calls its train carriages "world-class" and Funfields has declared the record for "the world's longest ProSlide Cannonbowl waterslide." Everyone does it. And I'll side with @rappa on this one, I don't think it's worth getting too wrapped up by the words in a press release, especially when that stuff isn't aimed at us to begin with.